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Showing posts from October, 2009

Downhere - Audience Song & Mighty to Save

Apparently, this is the band's standard encore in concert, as I've seen several clips of it, and they did this in Edmonton a couple of weeks ago, too. It's a good clip because it showcases both sides of Downhere - guys who don't take themselves too seriously, but yet take their ministry very seriously. I'd really like to see them put Mighty To Save on their next album.

New Starfield song - The Saving One

EDIT: The first radio single, Rediscover You, is streaming here . Second edit: Here's another version of Saving One that's just audio, but it's tremendous quality. Second edit: If you arrived here through a Google search looking for information about The Saving One album, see my update here.

100,000 hits!

Let's all take a moment to recognize this milestone. OK, that's enough. As you were.

Survivor Samoa - Episode 7

Blech. A boring and fairly mundane episode notable only for Leader Shambo and the return of The Schemes of Evil Russell. Otherwise, all the action really starts next week with the merge.

The Ultimate Fighter - Episode 7 - Junk Removal

Rampage goes 0-7, and the doors of the TUF training centre will never be the same. What a great show: Madman Matt, who must - MUST! - come out to Randy Orton's "Voices" theme when he fights in UFC, takes down Scott Junk in the best fight of the season (or at least, the best first round of the season). And Rampage and Rashad almost go to blows, hyping up the best fight that will likely never happen.

Parking fail

Hulk Hogan signs with TNA

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About last night's Machida-Shogun fight...

The Internet's all a-buzz today because last night's UFC PPV ended with Lyoto Machida defending his UFC title against Shogun Rua by winning a unanimous decision - a decision that virtually everyone who wasn't a judge at ringside considered to be one of the worst decisions in company history. I didn't watch the show last night, but I got an opportunity to watch the main event this afternoon, so here's my thoughts "live" as I watched each round: Round 1 was a pick 'em. You could give either guy 10-9 on that one. Round 2 was Shogun. So either tied 1-1 or Shogun 2-0. Round 3 was definitely Machida's round. So, if you gave 1 to Machida, he's up 2-1. Otherwise, it's Shogun up 2-1. Round 4 was another one of those toss-ups. I'd give it to Shogun because he was pressing the action more than Machida, but Machida probably got the best of the few exchanges that actually connected. So now, it's Shogun 3-1, or Machida 3-1 or 2-2. I'

Sunday afternoon humor

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Blogger needs better mobile options

It dawned on me as I sit here checking new apps for my Blackberry that I can get a Facebook app, and various Twitter apps, and even CNN or Weather Network apps, but there's no dedicated blogging app for Blogger. Instead, you have to essentially email blog posts, as I'm doing now.

The thing with irony is it's so ironic

The story begins this morning when a Windows 7 compatibility check on my laptop showed that my Acronis backup software was not compatible with Windows 7. This is problematic because, of course, you should always backup your system before upgrading the OS. So I needed to upgrade Acronis before I could even consider buying Windows 7. I went to the Acronis site, downloaded the new Acronis 2010, and installed it. Upon which time, it Blue Screen of Death'd me. Worse, it wouldn't even let me uninstall the new version, and a reinstall of the old version didn't seem to help anything either. In the end I had to use System Restore to get myself back to normal. In the middle of uninstalling and reinstalling Acronis, though, I Google'd the Acronis Blue Screen of Death for kicks and discovered that this is a huge problem in the new software that Acronis will fix, eventually. We hope. So I currently have backup software that is not compatible with Windows 7 that needs to be up

Mike's Mini Music Review - Kutless - It Is Well

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A confession of sorts: I really didn't "get" worship music until Kutless put out their first worship album, Strong Tower a few years ago. I thought worship music was kind of boring and stodgy in style and fairly simplistic and repetitive in form compared to "real" music. The Strong Tower CD made me realize that, actually, what I didn't like about worship music was how it was being presented to me - on a church organ with no passion or energy. Worship music done by a band I like in a musical style more fitting with my personal tastes? Tremendous stuff! A second confession of sorts: I much prefer Kutless's worship albums to their regular rock albums. If I had my way, they'd stick to making worship albums full-time. I really think this is what they're best at. Without going back and doing a track-by-track comparison, I can't say whether Kutless's second worship album, It Is Well , is better or worse than Strong Tower . The highs of th

Mike's Mini Music Review - Downhere - How Many Kings: Songs For Christmas

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OK, I gotta get one thing off my chest before reviewing this album, and it's this: Why is Downhere not the biggest band in Christian music? Seriously. I listen to all kinds of Christan music - everything from Skillet and TFK to Michael W. Smith and Lincoln Brewster. Downhere is the best band in Christian music today. They should be selling albums by the tens of thousands. I don't understand why they are merely "critical darlings" and not enormously popular in the Christian music genre. Plus, they are one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Jason and Marc's duel lead vocals are tremendous, and spot-on in concert. And with no other segue into reviewing this album ... Downhere's Christmas record, How Many Kings: Songs for Christmas , is really good. Two things jumped out at me upon listening to it. First, it sounds great. Full, lush arrangements. Maybe it's because I bought the CD instead of the iTunes download. But whatever the cause, I'm imp

Where to watch UFC 104 in Edmonton, Calgary and across Alberta

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Time again for my semi-regular post on where to find a bar to watch the UFC PPV this weekend. Nothing excites me on this card, so I'm taking a pass on it.

Survivor Samoa - Episode 6

OK, I didn't see *that* coming. So it's goodbye to Good Russell, who got taken out of the game via medical evacuation. Shame for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that we were unfairly denied the sight of watching one of the teams retching up pizza post-Tribal Council.

The Ultimate Fighter - Episode 6

Different week. Same result. Rampage is now 0 for 6. Whose the boob now?

Some new music reviews coming. Eventually.

OK, so here's the deal. I bought the new Kutless worship album off Itunes yesterday. I've listened to it once, in the car. It's good. But I've been really busy with work and too tired to bother listening to it again at home a few times to get a solid feel for it and write a review. And my new Downhere Christmas CD just arrived in the mail today. Yeah, it came out three weeks ago. I'm pretty sure I could have walked it from Tennessee to Edmonton in that time. So, yes, a review for that CD will be coming too. By Christmas, I hope.

More new Kutless! God of Wonders

This album is coming out tomorrow, but I'm a little worried about a Canadian release because it's not available for pre-order on ITunes yet.

Downhere concert review

What can I say? These guys are awesome, and they put on a tremendous show last night in Edmonton. Otherwise, High Valley was a pleasant surprise (all the moreso considering they're country, which is one genre I really do not get into) and Shaun Groves had a solid solo acoustic set highlighted by his incredibly dry sense of humor.

Kutless - It Is Well album promo

Comes out tomorrow!

Sunday afternoon humor

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Downhere is here!

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My favorite Christian band, Downhere, is in town tonight to headline their own concert. I'll be there live-tweeting it, so feel free to follow along .

OK, we're back. Kinda...

Well, I found a blog backup from September when I switched hosting services, so I manged to restore a good chunk of posts. But I'm missing about a month's worth of stuff. Will see how much of that I can manually restore from my Facebook feed of my blog. EDIT: OK, I managed to restore about 99% of the missing material. So we're back in business.

ARGH!

Ack! In the process of trying to clean up some duplicate posts from the hosting switchover a couple of weeks ago, I think I just deleted my entire blog. This sucks.

Shane McMahon quits WWE ... for what?

OK, this is the biggest wrestling news of the year: Shane McMahon has announced his intention to resign from WWE . My take on the whole thing is this: Shane sees no long-term future in WWE, personally or professionally or corporately, and is getting out while the getting is good and he's still young enough to go build his own legacy using his share of the family fortune. Frankly, this is THE wrestling story of 2009, and will have long-term repercussions on the entire industry (or what's left of it in North America). The rumor mill - or maybe, the wishful thinking mill, as Shane has said nothing publicly about this other than what's on the WWE site - has him going to UFC, where he'd do more or less the same job he did in WWE, which was global marketing.

The Ultimate Fighter - Episode 5

BWAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAH!!! Wes Sims got choked out by a Hobbit!

Survivor Samoa - Episode 5

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Not much to say about tonight's episode. It basically starred 48 hours of rain, and it's been ages since Survivor was forced to make NOTHING interesting. Otherwise, the food challenge was vomitlicious, and had me heaving in my seat just watching it. Bye, Ashley.

SiteMeter vs. StatCounter

Here's something random: For September, SiteMeter said that I had 3,343 hits and 5,179 page views. StatCounter, on the other hand, credited me with 4,097 hits and 6,262 page views. That's quite the discrepancy. Somehow, SiteMeter is losing about a quarter of my traffic.

Downhere - How Many Kings Live

The boys from Downhere put up a new video today of their Christmas song, "How Many Kings." The band is in concert in Edmonton this Sunday. (And, yes, I'll be there. Looking forward to it!)

Bonus Sunday afternoon humor!

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Sunday afternoon humor

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This is funny for so many reasons

The Onion sues Nobel Prize Committee - Steven’s blog - RedState Noted satirical newspaper, The Onion (www.theonion.com) announced today that it is suing the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for plagiarism and theft of intellectual property. At issue is yesterday’s announcement by the Committee of its selection of U.S. President Barack Obama as this year’s recipient of the coveted Peace Prize and 1.4 million dollar award. According to Vernon Coldwater, a spokesman from The Onion legal department, his employer can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the idea of awarding Obama the Peace Prize is the intellectual property of staff writers from the Onion political satire department, and that it was stolen by spies from Oslo.

New Kutless! What Faith Can Do

From their forthcoming worship album. Such a pretty song.

Survivor Samoa - Episode 4

Tonight's episode took a break from the Evil Russell Controls The World storyline in favor of ... well, I guess tonight was the Purple Team is Human After All storyline. Or maybe The Marines Should Really Disown Shambo Cuz She's Doing Them No Favours storyline. Eh, either way, Yas is gone, and the world rejoices. Next week, a return to the Evil Russell Is Probably the Devil storyline, and the beginning of the Weather Armageddon storyline.

The Ultimate Fighter - Episode 4

OK, this is getting ridiculous. And I'm now rooting for Rashad's team to win every fight this season. No wonder Rampage quit .

The Letter Black - Best of Me

Another cool tune from one of my favorite new bands, The Letter Black. Even my wife loves this song, and our musical tastes are pretty different (we meet at Petra. She goes softer, I go harder.) Still, I'm a sucker for female-fronted rock bands, and rock songs with orchestral strings and nice harmonies. This is one of those, "I luv, luv, luv this song" songs.

Sunday afternoon humor

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Stephen Harper sings Beatles song with Yo Yo Ma

Survivor Samoa - Episode 3

Crazy Ben gets sent packing to the nut farm, and the first cracks appear in Evil Russell's gameplan. Otherwise, how amusing was it to see Shambo be more cooperative with the opposing team than her own?

Kimbo Slice equals ratings!

From Figure Four Online : 5.3 million viewers for the show and 6.1 million for the fight. Highest rated fight in the history of UFC programming and most watched MMA television show from start-to-finish in history. The show did a 6.8 rating in Males 18-34, highest in the history of the station, beating the Ortiz-Shamrock fight in 2006. Kimbo vs. Roy Nelson did a 7.86 rating in the Male 18-34 demo.

The Ultimate Fighter - Episode 3

As expected (well, by anyone with half a brain), Kimbo lost last night, so the only reason to watch this season's show is already done, just three episodes in. And, as expected, Rampage Jackson's team is now zero for 3 on this season, and Rashad is already contemplating the sweep. Other than that, however, this was a total nothing show. And now that Kimbo's out of the running (unless they can find a way to get him back in via injury substitution), there's no reason to keep watching. I mean, what's the big draw now, the crappy fights?